Am I Doing it Right?

Meditation isn’t one thing that you simply do. It’s not solely closing your eyes and focusing on your breath, although for many individuals that’s a very good begin. Meditation is a merging of the meditator’s consciousness and the item of meditation. Uniting with the common consciousness—The Mom, God, Spirit, no matter title you wish to give—is the state of meditation.

We are able to’t discuss meditation or analyze it to really perceive its results. Dissecting meditation doesn’t get us nearer to the expertise. And it’s not as if the expertise is similar for all folks: It may be reached in infinite methods. Some folks join via mountaineering, scuba diving, writing, dancing, trying on the ocean, or being with their baby. There isn’t a proper or flawed solution to be.

I’ve spent years sitting down cross-legged on the ground specializing in my breath. Generally I’m agitated with my “monkey thoughts” leaping right here, there, and in all places; typically I’ve slipped right into a state of utmost peace and stillness, feeling the heartbeat of the universe.

The battle, the numerous expertise, the problem: That is the practice of meditation. The most important false impression about meditation apply is that it’s bliss. Years in the past, I went to a 10-day silent meditation retreat. Was I ecstatic, levitating, and communing with God? No, it was grueling. My knees harm, my again ached, and I couldn’t watch for mealtimes.

However the classes have been deeper than simply these of my bodily wants and limitations. I discovered to the extent that my ego or persona wastes power, via senseless discuss and ordinary responses to folks. I felt the juxtaposition of silence and solitude versus how linked and cherished I felt, versus being in a busy metropolis surrounded by folks and feeling alone.

Sitting nonetheless, we’re in a position to observe the tendencies and craziness of the thoughts. We, subsequently, achieve some perspective that our ideas are, in actual fact, separate from who we’re.

But when we aren’t our ideas and even our feelings, then who’re we? This can be a query people have requested themselves since time immemorial, and one which we should proceed to ask.

Life feels so private. Me—my—mine! We join and cling to our thoughts and emotions as if they’re actual. However how can one thing be so actual when it’s consistently altering? In case you are your ideas, then what have been you pondering final Thursday at 2:15 pm?

Sitting right down to meditate is to nonetheless the physique and practice ourselves to let go of robust attachments. It’s to launch identification with the thought of who suppose we’re, who we “know ourselves to be,” if just for a couple of minutes.

Gaps between ideas are the place magic and wonder lie. These are the moments wherein we expertise peace and security, wherein we’re reminded that we aren’t alone as we battle via life making an attempt to outlive.

You don’t want to take a whole lot of time in your day for meditation. Even 5 or 10 minutes as a daily practice can have a profound impact in your bodily, psychological, and emotional well-being.

The universe doesn’t need us to endure. The universe desires us to get up to the ability, creativity, and pleasure that we’re. The universe is consistently inviting us to keep in mind that we’re a soul in a physique, floating in a sea of consciousness via this magnificent and mysterious expression of life. Meditation can deliver us there.

—